Seem to be in list/research mode at the moment and was looking for one place on the web that had a list of stats about the mix of male and females across the ‘game/virtual world’ space. I have actually found it useful to highlight many of the type of stats to clients who still believe console games, online ‘quest’ based games and virtual worlds are still the domain of twenty something, slightly overweight, couch potato, anti-social males. Nothing could be further from the truth. Read on, and in no particular order!

More than half – 53% – of all American adults play video games of some kind

Independent of all other factors, younger adults are still more likely to play games.

Among older adults 65+ who play video games, nearly a third play games everyday, a significantly larger percentage than all younger players, of whom about 20% play everyday.

Gaming consoles are the most popular for young adults: 75% of 18-29 year old gamers play on consoles, compared with 68% who use computers

Computers are the most popular among the total adult gaming population, with 73% of adult gamers using computers to play games, compared with 53% console users, 35% who using cell phones, and 25% using portable gaming devices.

The average game player is 35 years old and has been playing games for 13 years.

The average age of the most frequent game purchaser is 40 years old.

Forty percent of all game players are women. In fact, women over the age of 18 represent a significantly greater portion of the game-playing population (33 percent) than boys age 17 or younger (18 percent).

In 2008, 26 percent of Americans over the age of 50 played video games, an increase from nine percent in 1999

Sixty-three percent of parents believe games are a positive part of their childrenâ€™s lives.

The percentage of female video gamers climbed from 33 to 38 percent in five years bolstered in part by Nintendo’s Wii, but also “interactive group games” such as Singstar, Rock Band, and Lips, as well as The Sims, The Movies, Nintendogs and NeoPets.

Consumer Electronics Association study found that 65 percent of women in the 25-34 age bracket play video games, while only 35 percent of men in that group said that they play video games. The key factor involved with these findings is the increasing popularity of casual games, especially among women. (These casual titles are typically found on web portals like Yahoo!, AOL Games, PopCap Games, EA’s Pogo.com and elsewhere.)

Women were found to be slightly less likely than men in the 25-34 bracket to play traditional console games on systems like PlayStation or Xbox.

Old (2000) but interesting item on ‘gender bending’ in games from womengamers.com

6% of subjects play female characters for 25% or less of their gaming time